The annual Cheese and Wine Festival held in Franschhoek each year is always overflowing with people fighting their way to the table closest to them for a little sample of traditional feta, a slice of melt-in-your-mouth camembert, a tasty ball of mozarella, or chunk of smoky Boerenkaas.

If memory serves me correctly my friends and I were forcefully removed from the festival last year at about 8pm (after the gates were closed) — still clutching the last bottle of wine and a couple of blocks of cheese.

Yes we love cheese. But as much as we delight in this soft creamy stuff, how much do we really know about it?

Taste, texture and aroma

Did you know that, like a good wine, you can in fact describe the taste, texture and aroma of different cheeses? The taste of cheese can be mild, buttery, spicy, rich, creamy, sharp, salty or subtle. Its texture can be firm, flaky or soft. The aroma can be mild to intense.

Fresh cheeses like young chevre (goat's cheese), mozzarella and ricotta are delicate and can be described as creamy, with aromas of citrus and grass.

Brie and camembert are more custardy, fluffy and velvety in texture with earthy, wet grass aromas.

Then there's Beaufort, Emmenthal and Gruyère which are bold and crumbly in texture and smoky on the nose.

Good old cheddar? Well apparently it can be smooth and supple with fruity aromas. Not so plain after all it seems.

Wine and cheese

How about a supple slice of mature cheddar to go with that full-bodied Shiraz, or some camembert with a glass of bubbly? If you want to match cheese and wine like a pro, here's what wine goes with which cheese...

Cabernet Franc: Brie

Cabernet Sauvignon: Cream cheese, Gruyère and mature cheddar

Cap Classique: Camembert

Chardonnay: Boerenkaas, Edam, goat's milk cheese, Gruyère, mature cheddar, Parmesan and ricotta

Unwooded Chardonnay: Brie, mature cheddar, camembert

Chenin Blanc: Brie and goat's milk cheese

Dessert wine: Blue cheese and Stilton

Merlot: Goat's milk cheese, Gruyère and mature cheddar

Pinot Noir: Brie

Pinotage: Gouda, Parmesan

Port: Edam, Gruyère and brie

Rhine Riesling: Cream cheese

Riesling: Roquefort

Sauvignon Blanc: Edam, Emmenthal, feta, herb cheese, Roquefort

Semillon: Goat's milk cheese

Shiraz: Farmhouse cheddar, feta, Gruyère, Maasdam, mature cheddar and Parmesan

This information is from Checkers

Caring for your cheese

It's also important to understand the basics of caring for cheese to make sure it stays fresh and delicious for longer.

You want to start by choosing the best quality cheese, no matter what variety you're buying.

Here are some tips:

• Cheese should have a fresh, clean appearance with no cracks or surface mold. Be sure the packaging is sealed properly, without any openings or tears that expose the cheese.
• Buy cheese at a store or market where frequent shipments of fresh cheese are delivered. Check the 'use by' or 'sell by' dates on packaged cheese. If buying fresh cut cheese, ask how best to wrap the cheese for storage as well as how long the cheese can be kept.

After arriving home with your new cheese find, make sure you handle it correctly.

• Cheese easily absorbs other flavours, so keep it away from other aromatic foods in the refrigerator such as garlic!
• Make sure you keep the cheese cold — between 0 and 3°C
• Cheese loses flavour and moisture when it's exposed to air, so make sure to wrap hard cheeses, such as Parmesan, in tightly drawn plastic wrap. Soft or fresh cheeses are best stored in airtight containers. Semi-hard cheeses, including cheddar and gouda, can be wrapped in plastic wrap as well as a lighter wrapping paper.

Cheeses of the world

Ever heard of these?

Asiago: Asiago is made in the Italian province of Vicenza. It has butter colouring with tiny 'eyes', and complex flavours, ranging from mild to aged. Favourite pairings include pasta, fresh figs, pears, salami, and crusty breads. Serve it with red wines, cranberry juice, and sparkling red grape juice.

Beaufort d'Alpage: Named after a small rural town in the French Alps, this giant cheese is creamier and richer than other Alpine cheeses like Emmental, Gruyere and Comté. The term D'Alpage indicates that this Beaufort is made from milk taken from a special breed of mountain cows (Tarines) that graze naturally, as opposed to those that are fed indoors from a trough. Aging of up to eight months takes place in the off-season in rural Alpine cellars that are naturally cool all year long.

Caboc: This Scottish cheese has a long history and is made according to an ancient recipe with cream-enriched cow's milk. Caboc is shaped like a chubby log, and then rolled in oatmeal. The oats give it a nutty, yeasty flavour.

Limburger: Better known as a stinky German cheese, Limburger was originally created by Belgian Trappist monks. The Germans, noted in the dairy world for their mimickry, latched on to the Belgian recipe and made it their own. This pasteurized cow's milk cheese has a tangy, creamy, brie-like flavour with an incredibly pungent aroma.

Motal cheese: The mountains in the Gegharkunik and Kotayk provinces in the west of Armenia are home to many shepherds and their Armenian goats with long hair and arched horns. The shepherds milk the goats once a day from spring to late autumn and immediately coagulate the warm milk with calf rennet. The broken coagulum is placed in terracotta pots, which have been heated in an oven, smeared with sour cream, together with coarse salt, and left for forty days. After this period the curd is broken by hand, flavoured with local tarragon, capsicum or garlic, placed back in the terracotta pots and sealed with beeswax. Motal is a soft white cheese and is ideal as a snack cheese with foods such as salami, fresh celery, and rustic rye bread.

Click here to find out more about the Cheese and Wine Festival.